Chief coaches must attend counseling after Belcher suicide

Dec. 5, 2012
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Kansas City Chiefs general manager Scott Pioli, left, and coach Romeo Crennel stand together before the start of Sunday's game, a day after Jovan Belcher fatally shot his girlfriend and killed himself. / Ed Zurga AP

by Lindsay H. Jones, USA TODAY Sports

by Lindsay H. Jones, USA TODAY Sports

KANSAS CITY, Mo. â?? One local memorial is over. Football preparations have resumed. But the Kansas City Chiefs are far from done dealing with the emotional aftermath of the murder-suicide involving linebacker Jovan Belcher, who killed his girlfriend before fatally shooting himself in the parking lot of the team's training facility Saturday.

Head coach Romeo Crennel, linebackers coach Gary Gibbs and general manager Scott Pioli, who all witnessed Belcher's suicide, are among a small group of Chiefs who must attend mandatory counseling, Troy Vincent, the NFL's vice president of player engagement, told USA TODAY Sports Wednesday.

Initial stages of counseling will continue through Monday, with follow-up sessions for individuals and groups scheduled throughout the next three months, or longer if needed, Vincent said.

"We're always going to say 'I'm OK, I'm good.' That's us. Especially inside of this space, from a coaching standpoint or a player standpoint, it's, 'I'm good.' No, we're not good," Vincent said. "Witnessing that kind of event is horrific. It's not about closing the door, not about being the gladiator, the tough, immortal football player that we've always developed into being. This is serious. This is a mental, visual image that we need to talk through, and this is OK."

Vincent said the NFL, through the Player Engagement program, provides counseling and education about a variety of issues, from relationships to finances to substance abuse to weapons. Counseling services are provided for players, spouses and other family members, and can be obtained through independent providers should a player seek privacy.

None of those preventative services are mandatory, however. And that's the challenge, Vincent said.

"If the individual doesn't share with us what' s going on, we don't know. We have every intention to assist whoever is being affected or is maybe having temporary or long-term challenges," Vincent said. "We can't force anybody to do that. We're not mind readers, and we don't want to assume. But the services are there."

Police Sgt. Richard Sharp told the Kansas City Star that the Chiefs had provided counseling to Belcher and Kasandra Perkins. Chiefs head coach Romeo Crennel declined to talk about any specific counseling Belcher had received, and said it is policy to let the Katie Douglass, the Chiefs' player development director, handle any player's off-field issues.

The Chiefs declined a request to interview Douglass.

The scope of the murder-suicide spreads all the way to New York, where Vincent said he and other NFL officials are struggling to answer the same questions as to why and how this occurred as people are asking in Kansas City.

Vincent, a former first-round pick and All-Pro who played for 15 years, was overcome by emotion in his phone conversation with USA TODAY Sports when talking about Perkins and Zoey, the infant left an orphan.

"You have to ask yourself, how much can we do? Where we sit, there was an innocent life that was taken, that's the most difficult thing. We have mechanisms in place to support those people that are still here, but there's a life that's gone, and a young child that doesn't have a mother or a father," Vincent said. "I think about my daughters, I think about my wife. What can we do? We're not going to stop educating and providing assistance and counseling. We've got our work cut out for us. It's a great challenge, but also a great opportunity."